Last fall I had moog ball joints put on and the mechanic greased them. Today I thought I would give them a small shot of synthetic grease and I found that the upper zerk was missing. The elbow was still there but no zerk. It looks as though most of the grease has come out. Does anyone know if zerks come with different thread sizes. If I can get a zerk at the hardware store tomorrow is there anything I should do to prevent this from happening again?
Thanks

Budman

 

One of them is taken out cause it hits the ujoint. You can pick up what you need at most car part places. When I need to grease mine I have to pull out the plug and put the zirk back in..Pain!


Dick

 

Dick i took the 90 degree fittings and ground the corner down a little.It clears the U-Joint and ive had them in for 55,000-60,000 miles havent knocked one off yet.and i do use my 4WD alot in the winters

 

Grinding the corner down did the trick for me as well!

 

Has anyone tried a needle style zerk? I would imagine that it would be low profile enough.

 

Ya I was gonna do that but didn't get around to it...Thanks.



Dick

 

Mine have the fittings in them , and the 4 wheel drive hasn't knocked one off yet , the clearance is tight though.

 

The u joint clears the zerk fine. it must have vibrated out. I hope all zerks have the same threads so I can get one today. The auto parts stores are closed on sunday.
The bad thing is that without the zerk the grease can come out. I hope the ball joint is ok. They only have about 2000 miles on them.

Budman

 

I was wrong. I replaced the zerk and the u joint does hit the zerk. Is there such a thing as a low profile 90 degree zerk that would correct this problem?


Budman

 

I"ve tried about 5 stores, but in my area I can't find a 90 degree zerk that clears. I leave the straight low profile zerk (that the ball joints came with) on the ball joint until it's time to grease then I swap it for a 90 degree zerk, insert grease, and switch back to the low profile straight zerk. Sounds like a big ordeal but it only takes about 10 minutes for both sides.

 

You just have to grind a little off the zerk and it clears fine.

 

Thanks, I'll hit it with a dremel tool today and see how it works. I sent an email to moog but no response.
Budman

 

I put a straight zerk on mine and use one of those grease needles to get at it with no problems. I'm not refering the the hypodermic style needle like you'd use on a bearing I mean the one thats got a quarter inch shaft thats about 4 inches long like you'd use on U-joints. Haven't had a problem yet using this setup and I never have to switch zerks.

 

90 degree zerks work just fine so long as you grind them down as far as possible. The ones that I have allowed me to grind quite a bit off without compromising the strength of the zerk. I've had them on my MOOG joints for a couple of years now with no issues.